


Slowly

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Childhood Memories, Coparenting, Ficlet, Healing, M/M, Peace, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9385439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: He's never had the luxury of living at this pace before; but he's old enough now to know how he needs it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Russian translation available here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11643813

He has never lived slowly before.

There had been down times, adrenaline-edged hours at home while Dad was off at the pub, when he and Harry got into the crisps and did their homework with one eye on the door, waiting for the silence to be shattered. There had been dull cloudy days in his room at uni, stretched out on his bed with his books, memorizing the hundredth position of a small ligament or odd connective muscle, ever humming beneath the seconds the certainty that if he failed and lost his scholarship he had nothing to fall back on, nothing left for him at home, since he'd told Dad where he could get off and walked out with his arm around Harry's shoulders. There had been times at the hospital working his way through an eighteen-hour shift of endless empty hallways, dead on his feet, knowing that any wish on a future star depended on his keeping on; there had been hours of inaction in the heat of the Afghan desert, curled up in his bunk, making an attempt at a sweaty kip before orders came down the line from men whose skins were safe, whose blood would stay in their veins, whatever happened to them on the ground.

After, in London, there had been days of nothing; months he can’t really remember now, hours he must have lived, but which left no trace in his mind beyond the ache in his hip and the simple lack of feeling; the aimless time before Sherlock; beautiful, mad Sherlock and the wonders and the terrors of living in his wake, floundering through the waves of longing and confusion and joy he knew no way to navigate. There had been too much hidden in those days for him to feel the stillness when it came.

But he is older now, and truths have been spoken, and losses counted and unexpected gains won; and now some days go slowly, with the unfairly lovely six-in-the-goddamn-morning light radiant in the front windows of the flat when he stumbles out of their bedroom on his way upstairs to Rosie’s, summoned by howls. There are breakfasts of soft cereal smeared across his lips with a generous baby hand; Rosie turning in a circle on hands and knees, trying inexpertly to catch hold of a beetle ambling its way across the stained rug; the steady sound of Sherlock tap-tap-tapping a slide against the tabletop, getting the specimen centered exactly so; Mrs. Hudson’s hoovering just audible through the floor; the voices from the sidewalk outside Speedy’s coming faintly through the open window; the tick-tick of the old walls warming in the first real heat of summer.

Now Bond night isn’t a cacophony of explosions and John’s exasperated laughter and Sherlock shouting at the Hollywood physics, the implausible plots and pseudoscience onscreen; it’s the soft clink of John's beer and Sherlock's wine being set down on the coffee table and the dip in the sofa where they settle in together, the hum of a baby monitor wedged into the pillows, the occasional intrusion of a small voice singing nonsense to itself, sleepy but not asleep, while John rests his tired head in the hollow of Sherlock’s shoulder, and the grounding weight of Sherlock’s arm settles safely around him. There’s the crackle of the fire in the grate, the murmur of the telly, turned up just enough for them to hear; and Sherlock does still scoff at the nonsense onscreen, but in a whisper, lest Rosie hear and shout to be included.

Now there are times between work and cases and making love and fighting the darkness lingering in the hidden places of his mind, periods of peace, in which nothing is asked of him but to lie sprawled on his back on the floor and breathe and stare at the ceiling while a tiny car in a small fist is pushed back and forth on his chest, until his eyes slide closed under the weight of the quiet. Now there are walks down the street to see the dog at the corner flat, and stopovers at the shop two blocks over for ice cream. There’s the three of them upstairs making an attempt at an early bedtime, John handing off the small solid weight of a bath-freshened Rosie into Sherlock’s arms, searching in the lamplight for the elephant amid the little heap of her dolls, turning back with it triumphant to see her petting Sherlock’s cheek, begging wordlessly for one more kiss; Sherlock burying his face in her neck and snarling like a pirate until she screams with joy. There’s tucking the blankets around her tired body while Sherlock turns off the light.

There’s saying goodnight together, Sherlock’s voice low and wry beneath his higher pitch. There’s closing the door behind them, gently, and going downstairs; a hand on his back in the shadows of the stairwell, a ring on his finger glinting in the low light, a quiet thankfulness between them as they go back into the kitchen to start the washing-up; they’re all right, and will go on being all right. After this there will be time to sleep, wrapped up in the heat of each other. There’ll be cases, and strangers, and gunfire and mayhem and murder, but not tonight. Tonight there’s a full moon outside the kitchen window and the soft sleepy sounds of the birds in the eaves and Sherlock’s damp breath in John’s ear as he kisses it in passing, and the night drifts on slowly.


End file.
